Leica Lens Buying Guide

Thanks for coming to check out the Leica Lens Buying Guide on the site. I made it as part of the Sony A7r review. I mention it now because this photo was taken with a Leica lens. And no, I’m not sponsored by Leica. I wish!

Daily Photo – Little Girl Guarding a Store in Beijing

I walked down a side street near an area called HoHai in Beijing to find all kinds of little treasures. This street was perfect. Dozens of tiny shops, from antiques to chocolates to perfumes to books to everything in between. There were many colors and outfits. From inside one of the little stores, this tiny girl walked out. She must have been the daughter of the proprietor. She leaned on the door and looked up and down the street, in her own zone.

Want to see me edit this in Lightroom?

Be sure to sign up for our newsletter — we’ll announce when this new tutorial is available. I’ve been working hard on it, and now all the Stuck In Customs elves are working on getting it all packaged up and ready for you!

Daily Photo – The Clouds of Hobbiton

There seem to be epic clouds over Hobbiton almost all the time! So amazing and wonderful, isn't it, the way the accumulate and float around. I've been here to Hobbiton probably 9 times now, and I always get interesting clouds at various puffy-levels. This one is maximum puff!

I love Yangshuo!

I’m excited to go back to this little town. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter — we’ll be taking a trip there together, perhaps!

Daily Photo – In the streets of Yangshuo

I loved walking around this city in the rain. The colors and the umbrellas were so fun to photograph. I loved using the Leica f/1.4 at 35mm wide open. It made for nice quick shots. I, unapologetically, enjoy taking photos of interesting people. I'd say it's about 70% girls and 30% guys. It's just much easier to find interesting-looking girls in the streets. They dress more interesting, have prettier umbrellas, and often have a certain style to them. I don't know…anyway, here is one of them!

Working from home

I’m curious… do you work from home instead of going into an office building? I was thinking about this when looking at today’s photo of a cool office building… I wonder if a cool office building even helps. If you like your job, then you don’t really mind what the building looks like, I think.

Daily Photo – Inside the Infinity

This is the inside of an interesting office building in the CBD (the boringly named Central Business District) of Beijing. Tom and I wontonly walked inside here and started taking photos. The security approached us and there was a lot of confusion. Then the manager showed up and everything went a bit pear-shaped. But at least I got this photo… I find it so strange… the design of these buildings… they are wonderfully inhuman, but kind of beautiful.

A Top 10 Hike

If you come to the Queenstown area, be sure to hit this hike in Glenorchy. I need to make a list of the top 10 hikes around here… oh but if I had the time to make all the lists I wanted to make and do all the things I wanted to do!

Daily Photo – Through the Wetlands

We were here early one morning. The most amazing thing happened, although you can't see it in this photo. The sun came over the mountain and started hitting all the millions of ice crystals that covered the morning grasses. It created a myriad of rainbows – like a thousand glittering jewels – I'll never forget it. I took some more pictures of this… I will see if I can re-capture the mood. Until then, a study of the light and shapes and the path…

Crazy Golf Holes

What other crazy golf holes do you know of? This must be in the top 10!

Daily Photo – The Most Amazing Golf Hole in the World

Look at this amazing golf hole! It's a single golf hole, way on top of Cecil peak. You can see Queenstown down below. The only way to get here is by chopper, and, well, Choppy! You can see her standing there on the green after just sinking a super long putt. I was up here with Curtis, Pete, Varina, and Frederick. Everyone was trying desperately to putt the ball in. She stepped up and sank it on stroke one!

It's not just a green — there are tee-boxes way up above too. There are a few, in fact, all of which use the same green.

Choppy says she came up with the idea because her dad had a fantasy-golf-hole calendar… and she thought, one day, she would build it!

Horse Photography

I love taking photos of horses… I’d love to have even more chances to try different things… I think I like horses in the middle of dramatic backgrounds, cool barns, nice textures, etc. So I’m always trying to get horses into interesting background contexts… I just ended up lucky here.

Daily Photo – Wild horse on the Li River

Okay it's not wild. That's kind of wishful thinking. But, let's just say it was temporarily wild! Local villagers would bring their horses down to the river to wash. This one villager brought this beautiful white horse. I had my guide ask them if we could take photo before she got all wet. So, she was temporarily free, splashing in the water while I took this photo. I hope she enjoyed it — I did!

The New Commencement

I know we have thousands of people that have signed up to be in The Arcanum, and maybe this video will just make you feel even more anxious! I hope not… but this is a new video I just released and you can see more about what happens on the inside!

Daily Photo – In the Mausoleum of Mohammed V

What a beautiful Mausoleum this is! I arrived here to see it at sunrise, but it was closed, and I ended up waiting outside for an hour. I was excited because I was gonna be one of the first in line, but it turned out that no one even got there from the public! It was practically empty, so I was very lucky. There was a no-tripod rule, so I had to do this HDR handheld.

One of the cool things about this photo that you can see if you zoom into the large version is the man sitting on the bottom level, praying.

New Interview with Andrew Kavanagh

Yours Truly on a Paddleboard

Doing yoga on a paddleboard is really kinda scary! But here I am doing a headstand — note that I did not hold this position very long! It was really strange doing it on an unstable surface!

Daily Photo – Yoga in Bora Bora

There's my Yoga teacher Sara Garcia out there on the paddleboard doing something even more risky! A few times per week, we'd take a few paddleboards into this little lagoon for a daily practice. It was really fun and different… the only time I went in the water is when I dropped my glasses and they sank! It's really hard to find glasses at the bottom of a lagoon when you can't see. I can tell you that for sure!

Denver PhotoWalk!

I need a Denver Expert to help me plan a route and stuff! Any volunteers?

I’ve never done a PhotoWalk in Denver and I am excited! I’ll be there (by accident via a long international connection from Yellowstone to Bangkok) for about 10 hours, and I thought it would be fun to come see the city, take photos, and meet you all! Let’s do it…

If you’ve never been to one of these, they are very fun! I’ll be setting up in various locations to take photos. I’ll talk through all my settings. I’ll talk about compositions or ideas… I also talk a lot about shots that I don’t take and why I don’t take them… anyway, I’m there for questions or, well, anything!

Fake Reflection Shots

I never fake my reflection shots, and here is a good way to tell. Now, even before telling you this, I suppose, naturally, it is possible to fake it the way I am telling you, but it is just a lot harder, I guess! Anyway, if you look at all the structures above the water, you’ll see that not all of them are in the reflection because of my angle. As just a little example, you can see all the mountains in the top, but not in the bottom. If you ever see EXACTLY the same thing, either it is faked, or the camera has to be like one inch above the water!

You can also see this effect in a previous photo I posted while over Lake Hayes. Just click on the “New Zealand” link above in the category to find that one!

Daily Photo – Taking a break on the hike

While at that amazing retreat called “Aro-Ha” here near Queenstown, we'd take amazing hikes every day… and had so much fun! Here, we stopped for a little break by this perfect little pond. It's amazing to me how many picture-perfect spots are all over the landscape here… I'll never get used to it!